1 Armstrong and the moon moment (The Guardian) Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, has died aged 82. The former US astronaut passed away as the result of heart complications following surgery. As commander of the Apollo 11 mission, he became the first person to set foot on the moon, on 20 July 1969, fulfilling the longheld dream of the US to get there before the Soviet Union. His first words as he stepped on to the surface – "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" – instantly became one of the most recognisable phrases ever uttered.
It was a moment that still defines what many have come to call the American century. Amid all the turmoil and horror of that most bloody 100-year stretch, the sight of the first human being to walk on the moon, transmitted on television screens all over the world, was a sublime vision, the power of which was not marred by the blurry images that brought it back to a breathlessly awaiting Earth.
This was the moment that Neil Armstrong stepped on to the lunar surface on 20 July 1969, and said the immortal words: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." The fact Armstrong seemed to fluff his lines, omitting the vital, modest "a" before "man", did not matter a jot. Humanity had finally broken the bonds of earth and put one of the species on another planet. The rhetoric was universal, but it was really a wholeheartedly American triumph. The flag planted on the moon was an American flag.
The man doing the walking was born in the small town of Wapakoneta, Ohio: about as all-American as you can get. He was also fulfilling the dreams of that other icon of muscular American patriotism, President John F Kennedy, who had urged his nation in 1961 to go forwards to reach for the moon – and put one over the Soviets at the same time. Kennedy had died back in 1963, laid low by an assassin's bullet in another one of those moments that all Americans remember.
The landing sent a message that America could compete in and win the cold war. The nation had been startled and terrified by the Russian success in putting the first satellite, Sputnik, into space. Suddenly, there was a fear that America might never catch up. But, in eight short years, the Apollo programme dragged the country ahead.
For Armstrong himself, the moment was a mixed blessing. He passed into the history books and he was assured of global fame. But he was also a quiet person. After he returned home he was given a parade in New York and embarked on a 22-nation world tour. But within a few years he had accepted an academic job at a university in the Ohio city of Cincinnati. He even bought a farm and started to grow corn and raise cattle. He did not give many interviews and rarely talked of his experiences. Asked once what it had meant to him, he replied that it had made him feel "very, very small".
The Apollo programme itself had ended. When Armstrong landed on the moon, no one could have known that the last man to walk on the moon – fellow astronaut Eugene Cernan – would follow him just three years later in 1972. No one has been back since. At the time it had seemed the beginning of a remarkable new journey. But it was not. Rather, it was the summit of a nation's achievement. It was a peak of progress. Now the next person to land on the moon is almost certain to be Chinese. Armstrong's amazing step did not, in the end, lead America anywhere.
2 India's trust deficit (Khaleej Times) For India to grow rich, must its citizens become more honest? It’s a question that preoccupied Kaushik Basu, the government’s chief economic advisor, during his term in office. ‘We talk of good moral values as useful in themselves, but the fact that economic development and economic functioning can depend on these values is usually pushed aside,’ said Basu, who left his post last month.
Better behaviour such as respecting meeting times and public spaces, as well as more moral behaviour in terms of less cheating or thieving, are both desirable and necessary for economic development, he believes. ‘A modern market economy cannot function without a modicum of altruism and trustworthiness,’ said the academic who once wrote a research paper called ‘Why we don’t try to walk off without paying after a taxi ride.’ It concluded that ‘when people are not automatically fulfilling contracts, life becomes more cumbersome and costly.’
In India’s case, a lack of trust due to pervasive cheating brings with it enormous costs.‘The biggest cost is that you don’t start up activities because the transaction costs are so high,’ Basu said. He refers to an account 100 years ago by a frustrated European engineer in Japan named Kattendyke who wrote about supplies not arriving on time, workers showing up once and never returning, and a pervasive lack of punctuality. 'When you block out the Japan, it could be India,’ added the economics professor, who is now returning to academia and his former role at Cornell University in New York State.
3 Pakistan -- A country lost (Cyril Almeida in Dawn) It began with the flag. A strip of white slapped on, but separate and away from the sea of green — the problem was there from the very outset: one group cast aside from the rest. But why blame the flag? It began with the founding theory. A country created for Muslims but not in the name of Islam. Try selling that distinction to your average Pakistani in 2012. 1947 was another country and it still found few takers.
Pakistan’s dirty little secret isn’t its treatment of non-Muslims or Shias or the sundry other groups who find themselves in the cross-hairs of the rabid and the religious. Pakistan’s dirty little secret is that everyone is a minority. It begins with Muslim and non-Muslim: 97% and the hapless and helpless three. But soon enough, the sectarian divide kicks in: Shia and Sunni. There’s another 20% erased from the majority.
Next, the intra-Sunni divisions: Hanafi and the Ahl-e-Hadith. Seventy per cent of Pakistan may be Hanafi, five per cent Ahl-e-Hadith. Then the intra-intra-Sunni divisions: Hanafis split between the growing Deobandis and the more static Barelvis. And finally, within the 40% or so that comprise Barelvis in Pakistan, there’s the different orders: the numerous Chishtis, the more conservative Naqshbandis and the microscopic Qadris. In Pakistan, there is no majority.
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